To fall by eye explores the apparatus of image making through works that foreground the objects of their creation. Borrowing from Paul Virilio’s interpretation of “la chute à vue” (to “fall by eye”), which literally refers to a parachutist relying on her own weight and perception of distance from the ground (instead of an altimeter) to determine when to pull the cord. Virilio uses the self-reflexive body in free-fall as a means to illustrate a contemporary metaphysical and political groundlessness, echoing what many theorists describe as the kind of post-foundational thought that emerged in the 1960s when late modernism was taking hold and the political bedrock was crumbling under the weight of the Cold War. Turning the focus inward to examine the technology of their own making, the works in this exhibition form a diverse constellation of reference points that coalesce around notions of fragility in technology and an attempt to reckon with its uncertainty.

Playing with the formal and conceptual language of the moving image, Aryen Hoekstra uses the Seattle’s World Fair of 1962 as a point of departure to speak to the ideological projections of late modernism ... Continuing this play with the projection and deflection of light, Hoekstra’s poster-size works on Cinefoil (typically used to mask lights in photography and cinema) feature images created using liquid light (emulsion) of the early space photography displayed in the United States science pavilion at the Fair.